Judge Won't Recuse Self From Bill Cosby Case

Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill has denied a defense request to step aside. Jury selection is expected to begin Monday.

(Published Thursday, March 29, 2018)

The judge in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial rejected demands Thursday from the comedian's defense lawyers that he step aside because his wife is a social worker and advocate for assault victims.

Judge Steven O'Neill said at a pretrial hearing that he's "not biased or prejudiced" by his wife's work and that the assertion that he shares the same views as his wife or has let his rulings be influenced by her profession "is faulty, plain and simple."

Cosby's lawyers are in court Thursday in suburban Philadelphia making a last-ditch effort to postpone the comedian's sexual assault retrial after losing their bid to overturn O'Neill's ruling allowing up to five additional accusers to testify.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday, but Cosby's lawyers could appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court.

The 80-year-old Cosby faces charges that he drugged and molested former Temple University athletics administrator Andrea Constand at his home in 2004.

As Cosby's lawyers are battling with O'Neill, who also oversaw his first trial, they also are counting on him to make critical rulings to bolster their defense.

The judge's wife, Deborah O'Neill, is a psychotherapist at the University of Pennsylvania and coordinates a team that cares and advocates for student sexual assault victims. Cosby's lawyers emphasized their concern over a $100 donation made in Deborah O'Neill's name to an organization that gave money to a group planning protests outside Cosby's retrial.

O'Neill said the donation was made 13 months ago by the university department where his wife works and that it wasn't a personal donation using her own money or their joint assets.

"How are my wife's independent views of an independent woman connected to me?" O'Neill said. "She's an independent woman and has the right to be involved in anything that she believes in."

O'Neill said Thursday that Cosby's old lawyers raised the prospect of having him step aside in December 2016, but never followed through. He added that he could've rejected the recusal request simply because Cosby's lawyers waited too long to ask.

He said they were aware of Deborah O'Neill's work as far back as December 2016, but that they waited until getting several adverse rulings just before retrial to raise it as an issue.

O'Neill spoke glowingly about his wife and said it was difficult to have her accomplishments "trivialized" in a legal motion. He said Cosby's lawyers had presented an antiquated view of marriage where spouses must agree on everything.

"What we do not share are unified views," O'Neill said, adding that his wife's views, "do not influence me one iota."

The defense request for the judge to step down was just one of the issues being argued during the pretrial hearing Thursday.

Cosby's lawyers want permission to call a witness who says Constand told her that she was not assaulted but could make up allegations to sue and get money, and they want jurors to hear how much Cosby paid her in a 2006 civil settlement.

Prosecutors say former District Attorney Bruce Castor's stated reasoning that he did not charge Cosby in 2005 because the case was weak and he wanted him to speak freely in a civil deposition is irrelevant to the case at hand.

They say Castor's unsuccessful campaign against current DA Kevin Steele in 2015 and his ongoing legal skirmish with Constand also are irrelevant.

Steele's predecessor, Risa Vetri Ferman, reopened the investigation in 2015 after The Associated Press fought to unseal parts of Cosby's deposition testimony — including lurid passages about him giving drugs to women he wanted to have sex with. Cosby was charged shortly before the statute of limitations was set to expire.

Documents made public showed that prosecutors have chosen model Janice Dickinson as one of the women they plan to have testify. She says Cosby drugged and raped her in Lake Tahoe in 1982.